overcompensating...

I want to start by saying this is not an attempt at fishing for compliments. No, I do not need to be educated about developing a healthy body image, no, I am not wallowing in self-pity. I just need to be able to say it out loud without making excuses for it, well, by saying it out loud, I mean silently typing away at my computer, I AM FAT. There, I said it, and am fighting the urge to make up for the statement by typing out a list of attributes that I believe make up for it.

This is my effort to try and alienate my sense of self worth from the digits my weighing machine seems to be throwing in my face every once in a while when my masochism hits an up and I jump on the scales. I wish to be able to train my brain to believe that being physically attractive, like most other achievements in life, is a combination of hard work, luck and perception. I need to be able to accept the fact that I may never be able to build the body of my dreams and that it is OK. I need to not go around boring my friends with anecdotes of how ten years ago, I had an amazing body, by which I mean, being twenty kilos lighter. Ironically enough, I did not have an amazing body then because I can clearly remember feeling as inadequately attractive then as I feel today. Yes, it is important in today's world to be able to compete with all the gloriously enhanced images of socially acceptable standards of beauty but it is also important to accept the fact that simply sighing and biting into a bar of chocolate and wishing for the magical wand of a makeover isn't going to get me there.

It is ok to not be able to wear shorts in summer if you haven't run the five miles a day you should have for the preceding four months. It is NOT ok to delude yourself into slogging at your desk after 7 on a Friday evening thinking, "Well, I am not pretty, I have to make up for it somehow". It is not ok for you to be the one to pick up the burnt toast because everyone else is prettier and hence deserve better. I don't find myself thinking this way regarding anything else, I do not feel the need to compensate for the fact that I cant speak seven languages like a friend of mine can, or the fact that my husband can dance circles around me to every kind of music, or that my younger brother is more academically brilliant than I ever was, or that more than half the people I know seem to be richer than I am. I only feel the need to compensate for not being pretty enough, or to put in more accurately, for not being thin enough.

I want to not continue to tell people that I would automatically loose weight if only I tired and that I am fat because I don't care enough. No, that is not true, I do care. I care so much that I have built into my psyche the need to make up for not having a great body by trying extra hard to excel in other aspects of life. While this may sound like a great motivational tool, it is NOT. It is highly demotivating and works in a perilous cycle of self doubt and binge eating. It is only taking away from a seemingly happy life that I have been lucky enough to build. I believe that perception is a strong measure for happiness and success and wish to see myself through the eyes of my loving husband and awesome friends. I wish to find it in me to love myself the way these wonderful people love me. The strange feeling of questioning the love that I receive from my friends and family has been good material for self depreciating jokes and all, but has now become a jarring reality that I wish to dissolve. I was showered with gifts for my birthday a couple of weeks ago, among which was a designer item, the first thought that came to my mind? "Jeez, now I definitely have to loose weight to be able to justify having this on my person". Typing it out now makes me laugh at myself but honestly, it is worrying how much my weight has come to define me. My brain is convinced that I need to work towards getting approval from a piece of leather!

I wish to be to happy with myself, just the way I am and to love myself unconditionally, no stars or hash tags attached. I wish to alter my perception of attractiveness and in turn measuring how much love I deserve from the people in my life and myself. I wish to not be convinced of how I need to over compensate for the lack of a thin body. I wish to be able to look into the mirror and know that all the jiggly wiggly bits belong to me, can be bettered with hard work and persistence and cannot undermine the other beautiful bits that make up ME.

The porcelain doll syndrome

This is a rant, not a medical paper describing an addition to the plethora of syndromes we seem to be plagued with. Why I stated the very obvious is because I do not want readers(if any) to be biased towards what they are about to read. This is me, talking about what has started to bother me constantly over the past couple of years. To start with, I was told, as a child, that my physical beauty is not a contributor to my self-worth. A very idealistic statement, this got my head twisted into a complicated lack of self appreciation and denial. I have, what I believe, the quintessential physical attributes of most women who belong to the southern parts of India. I have curly hair, skin that is irrationally quick at tanning in the sun, broad bones and substantial amounts of squishy bits on them. I have yet to come across a social gathering where I can find one female with none of these features. Everybody has at least one of them. I am no statistical genius but this seems to suggest that these features seem to be the norm around this place, then why is it that our definition of beauty is majorly inclusive of fair skin, straight hair and rail thin bodies? Don't get me wrong, I do not hold anything against those with the light skin or straight hair or rail thin bodies. I believe that beauty comes in all shapes, sizes, textures and colors.
 I am aware of the vast wealth of writings dealing with body images and how these are warped by media images and so on. I do not wish to repeat all that has been said about this issue. All I want to do is point out that something as congenital as the texture of ones hair is taken into account while sizing up a person, and sizing them up for social acceptance, not for modelling a hair product. Yes, this may seem a little extreme to a few of you and if it does, I must say, I envy you, because the other end of the spectrum has people like me that have been scorned for the texture of my hair. No I do not have hair that hurts people or gets in the way of everyday living, hell, I have even been complimented about my hair on rare occasions. I am referring to those who have looked at my hair and exclaimed about how difficult it must be for me to live with it!!! No I don't have a crippling life threatening decease that is difficult to cope with, it is my hair that they are on about.

 It does seem silly, doesn't it? It probably is to those who aren't on the receiving end of this tirade of observations. I do not refer to them as comments or insults because the people plating them up are honestly not malicious( sometimes!). They do not intend to taunt me, they are quite sympathetic to how difficult it must be for me. This is a bigger problem than plain old bullying. I do not mean to imply that bullying is easy to deal with, just that, with bullying, the roles are clear, the tormentor and the victim. With this behavior, the intentions of those involved is very unclear. In their minds, they are simply consoling me for having to deal with curly hair or broad bones or quite simply, tanned skin. They feel sorry for me and this is way worse than  someone making fun of me because of the same. Them being sorry about these attributes lures me into believing that there is something to hide or something that is unwanted and unpleasant. This needs to stop, because, to overhear your favorite aunt say to your father that she only wishes you'd loose some weight and stop playing sports in the sun so you could look pretty, is incomprehensibly destructive. My aunt loves me from the bottom of her heart but her definition of beauty is so far away from reality that she believes I need to look like the photo-shopped images she's bombarded with in media. These sentences that people spew at one another, in a generic sense, just need to stop. Trying to tell one another on how to improve oneself is absolutely welcome, the kind I am talking about are the remarks on how I would find my knight in shining armor the minute I loose those ever present, extra 5 kilos. Whatever your intentions are, do not go around giving advise to people about how they can look better, not unless,
you are a professional stylist and are getting paid to do it. 

A closet domestic goddess

A closet domestic goddess? Isn't that a desirable attribute? It is. This is a post about how, along the way of defining roles for women, a career oriented professional and a domestic goddess became mutually exclusive. Or maybe, this is a result of my warped thinking and analysis. I grew up in a home where my mother was superhuman, no she didn't breathe fire, OK maybe some days she did, she was the best at everything she put her mind to. She was among the fastest growing employees of a very bureaucratic organization AND she was a great home maker. Not only did she cook, clean and take care of both my dad and me, she cooked meals that were the talk of town, she always looked immaculate and she found time to embroider on the pillow cases. Having grown up in that environment, you'd imagine I would want to be exactly like her. You're wrong, somewhere along the way, my generation started categorizing women into two groups, the ones that wear business suits and the others that bake excellent cheese cakes. I wanted the deal with the business suits and decided that I don't need to pay any heed to domestic chores. I grew up refusing to learn how to boil an egg and used this as an excuse to my laziness, it became habitual to say, "Oh well, I am not going to be a house wife so I don't need to know how many measure of flour to add to that thing".

All this was true in my head until recently. I was facetiming (I don't know if that's a word but it should be!) a friend who saw my bed with its 6 pillows, a three set cover and a duvet tucked in at right angles on it, thought I was at a hotel.When I told him that was how I made the bed everyday, he laughed his ass off and said "Whom are you trying to impress?". I brushed it off and continued to talk about the fantastic reunion we should be having and how our dad's should have invested in private jets instead of our educations. After the hour long conversation, I jumped into scrubbing the kitchen while looking up a recipe for lamb chops on my phone. The boy, diverting his attention from the PS3 for a precious little second, said " Actually, whom are you trying to impress? So what, if the splash back has a few specks of curry on it? Let it be and come relax with me" (his idea of me relaxing being watching him splatter brains in the game!) And it dawned on me, I am a closet domestic goddess. I have made myself believe that my professional goals will veto my inherent desire to decorate the house. How untrue! I am now stuck with the desire to wear the business suit and know how to iron it perfectly too. No, ironing is probably taking it too far, I couldn't iron if my life depended on it but I want to do everything else that has traditionally been seen as an attribute of a domestic goddess, whose worth is measured in her cooking skills and how beautiful the monogrammed covers look in the guest bedroom.

 Besides the need to post self depreciating anecdotes, I wanted to write about how twisted the ideas of self worth are for women in today's world. I believe that because of some lopsided circuitry in a woman's mind, she tends to measure her worth in the things she's good at. This may not be gender dependent at all but in my experience, women have this bias more than men. The performance measurement systems they have can put any balance scorecard to shame. My disposition of being an educated woman from a highly patriarchal society puts me in a tight corner. Traditionally women from my society never had to work outside their homes. Then came the generation that educated its women but only so they could tutor their kids better at home. My generation of women are highly encouraged to pursue academic excellence and to pursue their dreams, as long as, they comply by the standards that the family has decided is acceptable. In lieu of this, you'd expect that families would bring up their kids with no gender bias, now that women are being encouraged to have careers. No, that doesn't happen. The patriarchal heads of families and some mothers too, encourage their girl child to study and have a career but never do they try to train the boys in the house to learn how to cook or clean. Isn't it only logical that the role reversal was uniform? If one has decided to encourage the traditional home maker to become a bread winner, shouldn't the traditional bread winner learn how to toast it too?

Yes, I am cringing about how unfair this is but also, I want to point out how this effects the guys in their lives. They are not facilitated with any means to learn how to live independently, to learn how to cook for themselves or a sick friend or partner, to learn how to clean the house before an inspection so they don't have to pay for professional cleaners. Every person must be given the basic know how of how to lead life without having to order out for food everyday and without having to wait for mom to visit to realize the carpet's actually beige, not a muddy brown. If writing this has to serve a purpose besides letting me vent, I want it to be a reminder to all grown ups of how different their lives are in comparison to their parents' and to all new parents out there, start inculcating this knowledge in the young ones now so they can learn to fend for themselves and offer a helping hand when they see an overworked care taker, mom or dad.    

The sour piece of mango

This post is a result of my inexplicable desire to analyse all my behavioral patterns and find what started them in the first place. I haven't really found a scientific methodology to this madness but I persist!

It was during the summer holidays while I was at school, that I remember this incident from. We had cousins visiting and in the late afternoon, mom had cut up mangoes for us to feast on. I was an only child then, (my brother is 10 years younger than I am), was majorly pampered and got the best of everything at home, yes, I'm captain obvious!!! This incident, however, changed my views on what was to become a life long habit. When offered the plate of cut mangoes, I naturally leaned in for the sweetest pieces, I was used to this. My mom chastised me about being impolite, and said I should let the other kids have the best pieces, and I ended up picking the sour piece of mango. This became a life long habit and excuse my cheesy analogy, but this has somehow changed how I deal with life and its curve balls.

I am pretty sure my mother was only trying to teach me to be hospitable but invariably this made me believe that reaching out to the second best was a good thing, if the people you loved, got the best instead of you.
Does that make me an angelic, unselfish, modern day saint? No, here's the glitch, I EXPECT appreciation every time I give up the sweeter pieces of mango! Yes, my mother gave me a hug and a whole mango to myself the next day as a reward but she was my MOTHER. What my brain, with its tunnel vision, registered from that incident was, one must give away the best bit to one's loved ones and they will reward you for it. Well, what a big fat lie that is!!!

Therefore, hence proved, I have grown up to be the girl who offers the better dress to her friends, offers to do their makeup before putting on her own face, offers to let the boy buy a remote controlled helicopter instead of buying herself a new pair of boots, takes the blame for the dirty kitchen when her brother had friends over for a party in the parents' absence, lets her colleague take sole credit for what she helped him do since he's a nice guy, lets the ever persistent bitch go around foul mouthing her, believing in karma, cooks the extra tedious meal that the boy mentioned he likes after a long day at work, and the list goes on. Do I do all this because of my inherent saintliness? No, I do all this expecting to be hailed as the best friend, sister, girlfriend and colleague of all times! Do I get what I expect, no, because human beings weren't built for efficiency or politeness, they were built for survival. So every time I do the stuff that I do, the opposite person either believes they received what they did because they deserve it, or because they are better than I am.

This is a vicious cycle where, every so often, I berate myself for going out of my way to help someone only to receive nothing in return, don't do anything nice for anybody, feel like shit, and invariably go back to my old ways. I tell myself that I must be my highest priority and that I deserve to sink my teeth into the sweetest piece of mango on the plate. Talking to myself about it or blogging, even, is the easy part. Implementing it is near impossible given my inherent people pleasing. I am at war with myself half the time, I can't help give in to my need to please people while I strongly believe that they should pay me back in endearments. Its not always the mushy stuff that I want in return, getting decked up for a night out, I want a friend to offer me the straightener first, I want the boy to buy me a surprise gift for the anniversary, I want my brother to offer to cover for me on a late night out, I want the colleague to acknowledge how my absence would have stinted the whole project, I want the bitch to simply shut up and let me be and I want the boy to hail me as the planet's best cook besides his mother. I want all these things but I never ask for any of them because my mom had given me the hug and the treat of a mango without me having to ask for it. I do realize that nobody else in my life is my mother but figuring out how to ask for these things in return is a puzzle I will never solve. I just want people to read my mind, figure out what I want and give it to me.

How do I justify such a silly sentiment? Here's how, "Don't I do it all the time?", "Don't I give all these things to all my loved ones without them asking for it?", "Why cant they offer to do these things for me?". So, in addition to working myself into a coil about how all these people aren't giving to me what I gave them, when some one does come along and offer me what they truly believe I deserve, I start questioning their motives and lead myself to believe that I don't deserve all that love and attention. Do you see how stupid I can be? Or maybe, I am not unusual, maybe there are a lot of others out there who do the same thing with their lives, chasing the unappreciative ones and ignoring those who want to cook you a lopsided dinner because you're tired, who want to give you your due credit for the work you've put in, who believe you deserve to be appreciated and treasured instead of being taken for granted.

I know its wrong to put all human relations into one basket and make a sweeping statement about them but I have come to notice a pattern in every relationship. One takes the sour pieces of mango, one lets the other take the sour pieces of mango. Yes, yes, this isn't an eye opening discovery, millions of people have said the same thing in a million different ways but I needed to say it too. Maybe just so I could acknowledge it, accept it and hopefully, try to stop fighting it. Maybe, I can grow up to learn to take the sweeter pieces or just be content with taking the sour pieces and not expecting anything in return. Here's to hope....

Emotional crutches

Despite its morbid name this post is a celebration of a beautiful relation. All of us have family, friends, a partner, colleagues and, what I lovingly call, emotional crutches. These are the people in our lives who we always turn to in times of turmoil, its these people who will listen to all your whining and cribbing about how unfair life is, how, no matter how hard you try, things never go according to plan and who will offer the best way out of any rut you find yourself in.

Doesn't every friend, partner or family member do the same you may wonder, the biggest difference between all these people and emotional crutches is that the latter have no stake in the decisions one makes. Either way, one's actions don't really effect their life and this gives them the rare ability of being absolutely unbiased and unequivocal about their suggestions or consolations. They will be there when you believe the universe is conspiring against you, they will bear with you while you narrate how foolish you have been, they will even let you whine about how your boss has been a dipshit the past week. And they do all this, while holding counsel about your next big move in life, with no expectation from you, NA-DA. This, is an anomaly of the generic nature of human relationships because every relationship irrespective of its nature, is a barter system based on an exchange of a plethora of things, love, affection, pleasure, care taking and the never ending list of human wants. These special people, if at all, only expect that you go to them in the time of need, yes, you read that right, they actually want you to go to them every time you need help sorting your life out.

So, if they do all that for nothing in return, where's the catch you may say? Isn't it all a little Utopian? It is, the hitch here is how they almost become a part of your daily life without an actual physical presence around you. This confuses the brain and heart into categorizing them into all the slots already filled by the other people in your life. They become a little of a girl friend, a little of a partner, a little of a father, a little of a friend and sometimes a little of a life coach. With all these roles that they play, they invoke in you a feeling that you cannot describe, a feeling that cannot be put into any of the boxes modern society has allocated to the heart or mind. My emotional crutch has seem me through the almighty drama that is my life, my obsession with pleasing people while having insane expectations in return, career flunks that I could not get out of, emotional breakdowns and plain old bitching. He, an articulate writer, cannot fathom how to explain my existence in his life to another person. We just don't belong to any of the boxes!

It is simply impossible to define our relationship, to tuck it up neatly into the labels that we are all provided with since birth, friend, family, lover, colleague, acquaintance etc. Hence, I am snotty enough to assume the authority to coin a new term for this relationship, an emotional crutch. To all those others who have such awesomeness in their life, you know what I am on about, and to those who don't, well, don't even try to build this relationship, you either have it or you don't.

Celebrating my emotional crutch!!!

Fruity breakfast it is

Well i woke up yesterday, a rare mid week holiday, with the usual grumbling from my tummy but didn't want to stick to the usual of 90 second oats. Opened the fridge and found plums that were too sour to eat alone, i may not be very good at fruit picking, so here's what i did:

Broke an egg on a pan, laid a tortilla on top of it, flipped it over and onto a plate, rolled it in with maple syrup and giving in to my vanity, cut up the plums into tiny pieces as garnish. The sugar loving boy devoured it and me, well i cant really complain...

Here goes...

To start off with, starting a blog has been one of those things that I have always said i would do but never plucked up the courage to do, also I blame my chronic procrastination for it. I am going to try and use this as an outlet to all the ramblings of my head that are either too stupid or too trivial to express to my human friends. Wow, so that basically is me saying I need the Internet to share my thoughts with and process the jumbled up ideas i keep getting, so far so good, the only concern is, am i going to make this a regular habit, how long will i continue to write and post and also what exactly am i going to post about??? i have no clue and i am just going to stay true to my lazy self and not make any promises that will only pile guilt on me later on. I may or may not post frequently, i don't know what i will actually post about and i am not guaranteeing a good read to anybody.
Off the top of my head i can think about a zillion things i can blog about, my new found love for cooking and decorating, my super dramatic and over the top relationship, my angst against the patriarchal society i come from, the clashes of my brain and heart, the ironic people pleasing that my rebellious heart cant get enough of or just simply my love for all things quirky, i believe i will wear anything that another girl would think twice before trying on( i don't mean outrageous, i mean quirky) or maybe i can write about all of them!

You get my drift right, ramblings of a confused mind.............................